The Movies Are Gray
by DoublyToxicWaste
Summary: In which one of life's harshest lessons is firmly taught. The world is not fair. It is not going to change. And you are going to deal with it.


And the TV was black.

Candace often found it boring to sit and watch TV for a long time. She'd liked this one show that used to be on, _Ducky Momo_. She'd been so sad when it'd been canceled in favor of the 'No Hour'. That was a boring show, she always thought. It was only one of those robot men sitting there and saying 'No' over and over and over again, sometimes stopping to say that this show should be taken as the answer to any questions they might have for their 'Supreme Ruler'.

It was kind of silly, really. She didn't quite know who that was supposed to be, anyway. Was it the robot man? Or the man with the funny nose who also sometimes appeared on the screen?

She hoped it wasn't the robot man. She didn't like him. He looked… he looked really friendly, just like the rest of them did. But she… they weren't friendly, were they?

Candace had never found it _that_ hard to make friends. 'Be nice' Mommy would say when she went to school. 'Don't do anything that you wouldn't want someone to do back.' Mommy called that the 'rule'. She tried hard to follow the rule, really she did. She didn't hit people, or poke them in the eye, or yell when she was inside, or talk when the teacher said to be quiet.

Then again, she'd had Stacy, and they were _best friends_. She really didn't need any other friends, 'cause she'd known Stacy would always be there.

The robot man looked friendly, too. But he – he _wasn't_.

He wasn't, and sometimes, when she closed her eyes to sleep, she would hear it all over again, just like she was there. The voice, the humming, the way the splatter had gotten on her, the stain refusing to come out of her overalls no matter what.

She had clean overalls now. Because it'd been her birthday, and her birthday meant that the train stopped at their house and a robot came into the house, demanding her old clothes, giving her a brand-new set to last her till her next birthday. There were no stains on these overalls.

Phineas and Ferb had wished her happy birthday, at least. Dad was still gone and Mommy was hiding in the basement. Once or twice she'd tried to get into the basement, too, but it was locked.

The ration cubes that tasted like chicken had never been Candace's favorite, but those were the only ones left. It was… alright. Phineas insisted on singing to her, the birthday song. She'd smiled at him, but something didn't quite feel right on the inside.

She watched a lot of TV in the days afterwards, late into the night, sometimes staring into the screen long after the robot had declared the 'end of the broadcast day' and the screen was just this yellow square with squiggly lines and circles on it.

It was all very, very dull.

Somehow it felt… okay. Candace felt funny, and the boring things on TV helped with that, in a weird way. It was almost like that the time she'd caught the flu. She would wake up from the nightmares that lurked behind her eyelids in a cold sweat, and there was never anyone around anymore. Maybe she _was_ just sick, though. It would go away if she just waited?

How long would she have to wait to feel better?

Sometimes Perry would lay with her on the couch, snuggling up like some kind of hairy, smelly pillow. She didn't _like_ the smell of him, but didn't bother to push him away. Sometimes even pulling him closer, because the room got so cold at night. She didn't know how he got so beaten-up nowadays, but he was still soft, even if his fur was sometimes stained with smelly red stuff.

With that blood.

It made her feel better to squeeze the softness to her, even when such squeezing would leave slick patches of red on the gray fabric of her overalls. She didn't know how that worked, exactly, but she didn't know how a whole lot of things worked.

She'd done _okay_ in school, she thought, but being able to add or subtract real good didn't seem to help much. Instead she just sat in front of the TV and held the platypus, trying to keep from sleeping as long as she could.

One night she woke up abruptly, though, in the middle of the robot's speech about papers, long before the end of the oft-repeated sequence. The TV screen was showing a _moving_ picture, even though it was still dark outside. That wasn't normal.

It didn't matter, though. Perry was still next to her and she tucked him tighter under her arm, staring into the screen as it flashed all sorts of colors before turning into a video of a man sitting at a desk with lots of papers stacked up on it.

It was the _funny_ man, the one with the long nose. He also had this black thing over his eye too – where had that come from, she wondered faintly.

"Well, well," he said. "Would you look at the time? Time for an emergency broadcast, I say, because, _boy_ , I think this the single greatest idea I've ever had." He laughed, and something about it made Candace shiver and pull her pet even closer. He was trembling too. Was he cold? Candace wanted the blanket off her bed, but she couldn't be bothered to go get it.

"Been having a few issues with some of OWCA's particularly stubborn agents," the man continued, steepling his fingers and looking serious. "And I'm pretty sure I just solved it, too. Because my NORMbots have finally found OWCA's secret bunkers, and would you look at what they found there, hmm? So many sweet personnel files galore. Including those detailing – dare I say it? – _host families_."

He stopped and laughed again, then jumped at the screen so suddenly that Candace lurched backwards and let out a stifled shriek.

"The rest of you OWCA agents out there, if you know what's good for you, will turn yourselves in _immediately_." Crumpling one of the papers on his desk between his fingers, he leaned back and was smiling again. "Or else the Goozim feasts tomorrow night. It would be just _such_ a shame, too. Innocent children and all that, yadda yadda yadda. Cry me a river, why dontcha. Or, better yet, turn yourselves in, 'cause all the crying in the world ain't gonna save no lives." He clapped his hands. "I've grown tired of these games. This ends now, or a lot of people are going to die and then it's going to end. Your choice, really."

There was a sudden high-pitched squeaking, and the unmoving yellow screen was back, accompanied by that same mechanical, yet cheerful and friendly, voice again. "This concludes our broadcast day."

She hated that voice.

She didn't know why, really, more than she knew anything going on anymore, but that voice, it… it made her shiver like she was cold, it made her want nothing more to curl up in a ball and run and hide just like Mommy did. What if the same thing happened to her, that happened to Stacy?

Thoughts like that, they… made her feel sick to her stomach a little.

Reaching over, she patted about the couch for Perry, wanting to draw him closer, but her hand found nothing there. She looked, and there _was_ nothing. He was gone.

Candace's eyes widened slightly, and she cast anxious glances about the room, trying her best to see into the dark and scary corners only by the dim and shaky light the TV screen cast off. But nothing moved, nothing was there.

"Well, _fine_ ," she whimpered aloud, the words sounding rather braver in her head rather than her trembling voice. "Go 'way then. I don't like you anyway." She hesitated, but could only hear the faint scratching of the TV in the background. "You smell."

She hugged her knees to her chest tightly and stared into the unresponsive television until exhaustion at last triumphed over fear and sent her spiraling back to that street with Stacy again.

Phineas woke her the next morning, poking her in the shoulder and repeating "Candisss, Candisss, Candisss".

"I hear you," she grumbled, sitting up and wiping at her eyes. "What?"

"Where's Perry?" he asked, his voice high and quivery. "With you?"

"No," she returned, fixing her eyes on the TV screen again. It was morning now, and the 'No' show was back on. It was boring, but it was… something. It made her feel a little better, somehow.

"You know _where_ he is?" her brother pestered her. "Candisss – Candisss!"

"I said _no_!" she snapped.

He looked taken aback, as if he might cry. Ferb was there, too, but he wasn't saying anything. He never did. At least Phineas didn't cry. Candace didn't know what she'd do if he did. Whenever Phineas cried, Mommy would pick him up in her arms and pat him on the back. Candace wished Mommy would pick _her_ up right now.

Where was Mommy now?

But Phineas didn't cry, although his eyes got really watery as if he might. Instead, he smiled a little at her. It didn't make her feel any better. All she could think of was the friendly, inviting smiles of the robots. On _the_ robot.

Lots of things smiled.

But not everything followed Mommy's rule.

It wasn't _fair_.

"Le's go, Ferb," Phineas was saying, as he stretched up to his fullest tiptoes to reach the knob on the front door, the sound of it rattling about instantly catching Candace's attention.

"What are you doing?" she demanded.

Phineas looked back at her and blinked. "Ferb 'n me 'r gonna go outside. We're gonna find Perry." He was smiling again, like he always did. "Le's go, Ferb," he motioned to their silent step-brother.

Candace stared a moment, watching as he managed to get enough grip on the door knob to turn it. When she saw it swing open, though, a sudden spurt of something exploded out from inside her, and she scrambled up from the couch and across the living room floor, slapping Phineas' hand off the knob and slamming the door shut with all the force she could muster.

"Ow!" her brother wailed. "Candisss!" The watery look was back in eyes again as he rubbed his hand. "You – you hit me! Why?" A stray tear streaked down his face.

Candace stared at him for a second. "You… can't go out there." It should've been obvious. Everything looked friendly, but - it - it _wasn't_ friendly, not out there. The robots, they - they didn't follow Mommy's rule.

Stacy was dead.

She blinked, continuing to stare, the images coming back yet again into her mind. The friendly smile, the buzzing, the light, the _blood_. Stacy. It was her brothers this time. Standing there with the smiling robot, standing there, standing there until they _weren't_ , and there was only red and nothing else left.

She couldn't let it happen. Not again. There was one red stain on road outside. There… there couldn't be more. She couldn't let it.

"Why you hurt me, Candisss," Phineas whimpered. "Wanna go 'side and find Perry. He's 'salways here mornings. Look! He didn't eat his breakfast either. He's _hungry_."

Candace hesitated. Her parents had always told her to not lie, that it was a bad thing. She got in trouble for lying usually. But where were they now anyway? And that red stain out there on the pavement, it…

"You just can't," she said, flailing about in her mind for an excuse to content him. "It's, uh, he's – he's just gone, okay? He's…" she hesitated, staring into a space for a second. "It's dead."

"Dead?" Phineas repeated after her. "What?"

"It's…" the sentence died in her throat. There really were _no_ words that she could think of _to_ describe what she'd seen. "He's gone." Where was the farthest place she'd ever been from home? It would be a lie, she knew. But right then, she didn't care. "He went to – to the farm. The same one Bucky did."

"Bucky?" Phineas giggled a little despite his tears. "I 'member Bucky. But she went away, 'member?"

"I know." Lying was bad, her parents told her. But they also told her to follow the 'rule'. And they weren't here anyway, and she _couldn't_ , just _couldn't_ let her brothers go outside.

Inside the house was… well, there wasn't much to do, really. But outside there were… outside was a scary place. Inside was – it wasn't _scary_ , not in the same way. Candace felt lonely, but she didn't think that was from being inside?

Her brothers were here with her, after all, even if Dad was gone at the factories and Mommy was hiding in the basement. Phineas and Ferb, they – they wouldn't leave her, right? Not the way Dad and Mommy did.

Not the way Stacy did.

Her lips trembled a little as she got down on the floor with them and squeezed them so tightly that they squirmed and Phineas tried to wiggle away from her. There weren't a lot of things that Candace understood.

She couldn't let it happen again. Not to her little brothers. Mommy always said 'You might find them annoying at times, but when you grow up, you'll be glad you have them around.'

Where was Mommy now? Candace didn't know.

Phineas and Ferb were right here.

She couldn't let them go outside – wouldn't let anything happen to them. Not – not now.

Not ever.


End file.
